When I was 18 I met Iggy Pop. It was a brief meeting which was probably a blip on his radar, one of many duties to perform in a day but meant the world to me. It’s interesting that these days you have to pay premium VIP ticket prices for such a meeting but in those days, a bit of entrepreneurial flair and an adventurous spirit could get you in anywhere.

Around 1987 me and a friend had bought tickets to his gig in Copenhagen………wait a minute…….this was not just a gig, ‘WE WERE GOING TO SEE A LEGEND’. I used to go to parties where people would sit in crummy corners of the room discussing music while saying things like (insert stoned voice) “apparently David Bowie said to Iggy Pop in 1973 that ……………… (insert anecdote), Seriously, seeing Iggy Pop was a bit like meeting the pope or a god.

The gig was spectacular, wild and free and afterwards we sneaked around outside where the large equipment vans were parked. We managed to find a backdoor which led to a long corridor which in turn led to another long corridor until we ran into a few roadies who walked around like builders on a site, busy packing the equipment. We asked one of them where we could find Iggy Pop to which he answered ‘Iggy has left the building’. Bummer, REALLY! Did we get there too late? Disheartened we went to the front of the building which was completely deserted and dark. The building itself had transformed itself from a lighthouse of joy, freedom, people, celebration to a dark suburban  structure with residential houses around it where residents had already gone to bed ready for another days work.

So we stood there for 5 minutes not knowing what to do and suddenly a door opened and a guy with long dreadlock type hair and sunglasses walked up to us and said “hi guys, did you see the show?. He was slightly subdued, perhaps with a hint of shyness, like a man who had worked hard in the field, had given every ounce of his being to the task and now was ready to go home, watch a bit of tv and a drink before bedtime. There was nothing in his being that indicated a living legend was standing before us, we were among a friend, a regular guy whom we hardly recognised.

So we had a little chat and I asked him if he had been to Denmark before and he said he played Roskilde Festival the year before. My friend immediately responded in a accusatory tone ‘yes but you only played 50 minutes’. Iggy responded slightly embarrassed ‘yes I know, sorry’. We then said goodbye and he jumped into a car which was an old banger you could probably buy at a scrap yard for £500. No limo, no minders in black suits, no noteworthy entourage just a regular guy who had done his duty, given what he had, living through the ups and downs of the world and on top of it all gave a little bit of his time to two grateful 18 year old kids.